unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

The Middle Earth universe is practically ball-shaped with the amount of padding Tolkien put into it. While it's a pity that the series isn't keeping with the meme about bearded dwarf women, it seems people are already forgetting about the liberties PJ took with six movies.
RTHKI
mmmf mmmf mmmf
+1,741|6937|Oxferd Ohire
can you really blame the last 3 on him
https://i.imgur.com/tMvdWFG.png
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

TBH I would have probably still watched it if it were 12 movies. Maybe not in the theater though.

I did enjoy some of the artistic license in The Hobbit.
uziq
Member
+492|3652
didn’t see the hobbits movies and won’t watch the shows.

did like the movies. epochal, even. i saw them at the right time; i was the right age. do i feel the need to check in on a universe that’s intended for teenaged boys when i’m nearing 35? no.

as i said before, it mystifies me why people let themselves in for inevitable disappointments and have to faithfully tune into everything regarding a fictional universe they liked. i’m happy for LotR’s original trilogy to be part of my teenage imagination. like the original 2-3 warcraft games. i didn’t need to keep buying every expansion and feeling the same anger and disappointment afterwards. i knew intrinsically that it was no longer ‘for’ me.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
I don't get how people get attached to a character and "want to hear how the story ends." They don't exist. Make it up in your head.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
The MCU would be a more interesting universe if half of all the people stayed dead after Infinity War. The Avengers must protect a world permanently traumatized by the death of half of all people. The MCU also never broached how people would react to the fact that 3 billion people all confirmed that there was no after life.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

uziq wrote:

didn’t see the hobbits movies and won’t watch the shows.

did like the movies. epochal, even. i saw them at the right time; i was the right age. do i feel the need to check in on a universe that’s intended for teenaged boys when i’m nearing 35? no.

as i said before, it mystifies me why people let themselves in for inevitable disappointments and have to faithfully tune into everything regarding a fictional universe they liked. i’m happy for LotR’s original trilogy to be part of my teenage imagination. like the original 2-3 warcraft games. i didn’t need to keep buying every expansion and feeling the same anger and disappointment afterwards. i knew intrinsically that it was no longer ‘for’ me.
Between the two sets I would recommend Jackson's LotR over Hobbit. Theatrical cut for the impatient. I think they'd stand up now even for people who've never watched it.

The Hobbit is nice if you have a nostalgic place in your heart for the book and lore, and don't mind too much meandering or extra invention.

Rings of Power might click more for people who read a bit of the Silmarillion but aren't tiresome sticklers for book-accuracy. I watched the first two episodes in a party and part of 3 on my own. Probably best to wait for the conclusion before slapping on a rating. For now, it's met reserved expectations.

I'm pretty sure there's like ten thousand hours on youtube about why it's bad, same with Star Wars.
uziq
Member
+492|3652
the youtube algorithm must have changed in some way to reward creators more for longer videos/more sustained watching, because i've noticed in the last few months a superfluity of these stupid videos where it's like 'marvel movie #155: a review' and the fucking video is like TWELVE HOURS LONG. like, my guy, you do not need to anatomise a disposable movie that was pumped out in 6 months. it's not a cinematic masterpiece where every frame requires a long disquisition.

and yah, no shit LotR > the hobbit. it's not even close. i spent hundreds of hours watching the original trilogy, with the extended features, on a second monitor whilst gaming or grinding on an MMO as a teenager. perfect for it. but i have no desire to return to that. the fuck would a grown man want with elves and magic rings?
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

Video and 3d suites were a chunk of my time at college, so mostly I'm interested in behind the scenes, special effects breakdowns and technical commentary in terms of discussion. I've probably watched more of that from Avatar than the actual movie.

I'm not really interested in teasing a person for watching the occasional, whimsical fantasy into their adulthood. I take exception when someone comes along who was by their admission teary-eyed at Wonder Woman hovering in space, but completely dismissive of serious dramas as "uninteresting misery that doesn't add anything special to humanity's catalog of movies," or whatever. Also unaware of and uninterested in why the comic book movie evoked emotion.

Also, I think Marvel's up to movie #306 now. You're stuck in 2017 *snort snort snort*
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
The high water mark of GoT
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

It was a cool-ish pan-out milking those leitmotifs, but a really fucking bland, unenergetic scene in the end. They're all just standing there, on the same ship, emotionless. Why are all the brains of her outfit on just the one ship anyway?

How long have they been standing there? Do they just stand there the whole trip across the ocean? Did the dragons tire out? Did they have a barge to land on to rest? I think C/Narnia put some thought into the transport of large animals when they were thinking of leaving Eustace behind.

That is where GoT 'peaked?' lmao

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-09-16 01:36:32)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
It was all down hill S7E1
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

It had a few points of interest before that point, but if I'm going to be honest with myself, my interest began to wane during season 1. The whole thing felt like a waste of time, barring that I had fun at watch parties. I don't really give it much thought anymore unless it comes up in conversation.
uziq
Member
+492|3652
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/ … ith-comics

And he now looks with dismay on the way the superhero genre in which he once worked has eaten the culture. “Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys – and it was always boys – of 50 years ago. I didn’t really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s – to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional – when things like Watchmen were first appearing. There were an awful lot of headlines saying ‘Comics Have Grown Up’. I tend to think that, no, comics hadn’t grown up. There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as they’d ever been. It wasn’t comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.”

He thinks that’s not just infantile but dangerous. “I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilisation – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.” He points out that when Trump was elected in 2016, and “when we ourselves took a bit of a strange detour in our politics”, many of the biggest films were superhero movies.
RTHKI
mmmf mmmf mmmf
+1,741|6937|Oxferd Ohire
Meh
https://i.imgur.com/tMvdWFG.png
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
Alan Moore has been a whiny bitch for awhile. The man could angrily write about the sunrise.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

I'm not sure what Trump's rise to power has to do with the popularity of comic book movies. There are plenty of liberal comic book fans. In addition, magats have been complaining about 'woke' comics. And before that, conservatives have been complaining about comics' liberal agenda. Seems like a stupid point.

Dumb, shallow movies have been a thing before comic book movies ever took off. Literal shovelware. Some people stopped watching movies altogether.

His window of opportunity to in any way "repent" from comics has probably long since expired. It's extremely funny hearing a millionaire who made ultraviolent, ghoulish comic books assure us that it's all definitely "for children" (heavy cough), and gripe about the adult audience his splatterfests picked up. The Watchmen movie was certainly not made for a PG audience, sit down, Moore. You've previously argued about fascism through comic books.

I'll acknowledge that the popularity of dumb franchises in general probably has a deleterious effect on various discourse (I think I've posted about this before, linking to an older Moore commentary), but it's a little silly hearing it from a purveyor of comic books to any more of an extent than "in passing." Imagine George Lucas bemoaning for decades or whatever how Star Wars has dumbed down movies, "anyway I hope you enjoy this, the 50th movie." Moore's bibliography is filled with the very stuff he condemns.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-10-07 19:36:36)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

Moore: "I wrote this for pre-teens!"
What Moore wrote for pre-teens:

https://getwallpapers.com/wallpaper/ful … esktop.jpg

luh-mao
uziq
Member
+492|3652
he's an old curmudgeon and a gadfly on the community, but it's good that people like that are around.

you can read 101 'the death of the novel' pieces in literary magazines every year; it's self-examination and a bit of good hygiene.

obviously i don't follow his facile analysis that 'trump got elected because of marvel movies', but i think he's right in that there has been some backsliding in our culture, generally, into something like a populist infantalism, grasping hands, answering to base instincts. nuance and compromise and the generally more sophisticated aspects of living in a plural democracy have been lost. it doesn't take a great lot of extrapolation to compare 'good vs. bad' marvel movie morality with the way republicans and democrats talk about one another thesedays. we increasingly exist in a world of comic book personalities, not nuanced and many-shaded human ones.

plus he's basically grown up and graduated from kiddies' comics to novels and adult fiction. who can possibly disagree with that. 50-year-olds who still read comics designed for illiterate GIs and scoff at novels are maladjusted freakazoids. it's totally right and natural within the arc of his own artistic development that he went from deconstructing comics and generally partaking in that postmodern over-ripening of the form to then, being exhausted with those formal possibilities, moving onto other forms. the novel undoubtedly has a lot more potential than the comic or pretentiously named 'graphic novel'.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-08 01:55:22)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

I won't begrudge him his attempt to move onto better things, but him acting like he's above it all considering some of those goofy titles of his written as recently as the 2010s, lul. I wonder if he, a DC contributor, still has deep and profound interpretations of the relationship between Batman and Joker but is just too embarrassed to share them.
uziq
Member
+492|3652
i'm pretty sure the comics industry and hollywood ripped him off at every opportunity and gulled him. no doubt part of his present bitterness.

the idea he's a multimillionaire living off the fat of his royalties is funny. alan moore lives in a terraced council house in northampton. a place not known for its lustrous appeals. he's still very active in the local art and culture community there. his most recent 'literary' works are all set in northampton.



no idea what on earth this is but you can see the environs and standard of living pretty well. he's not stan lee.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-08 02:23:19)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

I'd looked up his net worth, said to be $1mil, startlingly under what I expected. I've no doubt he was fleeced.

Excelsior, Dr. Manhattan.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-10-08 02:25:37)

uziq
Member
+492|3652
those net worth estimations online are almost invariably bullshit. i have seen so many passing remarks in interviews with public figures and celebrities in which they all respond – no doubt a little self-deprecatingly and evasively – "i wish!"

from working in publishing i can tell you that having a best-selling and classic book to your name doesn't always translate to endless midas riches and a pool of wealth. working-class writers, counter-cultural ones like Moore especially, could very easily go through life signing bad contracts and making ill-advised financial decisions. it wouldn't surprise me if he signed over control of a few of his creations/IPs a long while ago and hasn't seen a cent from it.

also the average price of a home in london (or the south-east generally) is about $600,000 ($400,000). the guy is not rich by any metric. i don’t doubt that watchmen et al have probably paid off a mortgage or two, and that he doesn’t have to work for the rest of his days, but it’s very telling that he’s still based solely in northampton. that’s like choosing to live in camden, NJ or new haven, CT, or something. there are much nicer towns within 1 hour of northampton where ‘the money’ relocates to.

it is undoubtedly in his financial interest to stay loyal to comics and to milk his fame there. he’s writing 1,000 page literary novels now that i doubt have even 1/15th the readership. and i doubt people are queuing up to option his difficult novels for hollywood movies or netflix tv shows.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-08 02:32:13)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6971|PNW

I take that stuff with a grain of salt too, and more or less included it for color.

That said, if a million (or even several million) dollars dropped in my lap tomorrow, I'd probably still be living in my smallish place (with occasional gunshots in the distance, because America) by the end of the year.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-10-08 02:34:01)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6306|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/07/watchmen-author-alan-moore-im-definitely-done-with-comics

And he now looks with dismay on the way the superhero genre in which he once worked has eaten the culture. “Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys – and it was always boys – of 50 years ago. I didn’t really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s – to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional – when things like Watchmen were first appearing. There were an awful lot of headlines saying ‘Comics Have Grown Up’. I tend to think that, no, comics hadn’t grown up. There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as they’d ever been. It wasn’t comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.”

He thinks that’s not just infantile but dangerous. “I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilisation – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.” He points out that when Trump was elected in 2016, and “when we ourselves took a bit of a strange detour in our politics”, many of the biggest films were superhero movies.
LMAO

From antiquity to today the only stories recounted have been supernatural superhero fantasies, anything else has been the oddity.

I mean, haven't the jews spent the last 4,000 years obsessing over and living their lives according to some hokey story probably invented as a bed time entertainment for some guy's kid?
Christians aren't far behind, muslims were a little slow.

Fast forward 1,000 years and we'll probably have
"You know, I'm not sure Luke Skywalker actually existed, or the force is an actual thing, you guys are wasting your lives"

"Heresy!"

https://media.tenor.com/dmCmpw1pBogAAAAM/piedras-vida-de-brian.gif

Supernatural superhero fantasies are literally the norm in literature and are timeless, stories about some berk wandering around trimming hedges, or waiting for an inheritance are the aberration and will be forgotten.
Fuck Israel

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